


The Other Side

by Drag0nst0rm



Series: Brave New Worlds [9]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: AU, Gen, So many AUs, mentioned Arthur/Guinevere
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-02
Updated: 2016-11-07
Packaged: 2018-08-28 13:31:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8447803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drag0nst0rm/pseuds/Drag0nst0rm
Summary: Arthur gets a blinding moment of truth every time he puts on the crown.
Merlin, in his various incarnations, gets varying levels of instinctual knowledge and alarmed confusion.
He might not know what's going on in Arthur's head, but he knows whose side he's on all the same.





	1. Before

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own Merlin.
> 
> One of the sections is psuedo-historical; I make no claims as to actual accuracy and would like to think the BBC history site for its help with quick facts.

_The First Meeting_

Merlinus, son of Gaius, lived in what had once been a Roman villa. The Saxons had burned it down ten years ago, when he had just been a boy, and no one who had even seen Rome had entered it for as long as Merlinnus had been alive, but his father had told him stories from when he was a boy.

Now his father was gone, and the task of gathering herbs and mixing them fell to him. He had use for them far more often than he would like. Far too many of the children that Gaius had collected on his travels like they were rare mushrooms were sickly. Gaius had said it was because the Saxon magic that had destroyed their villages had poisoned them, and Merlinus had nodded and tried to make himself believe that whatever it was that made the sidhe lead him to good herbs instead of an early death was his politeness and not the same poison coursing through his veins.

There wasn't a child in the villa that didn't call themselves a son or a daughter of Gaius, and Merlinus was afraid that it might not be Briton or Roman blood that flowed through his veins. He'd meant to ask, but he'd never quite found his nerve, and now that Gaius was gone, he was the oldest, so there was no one who would know.

When Gwenhywfar could hunt for the others without aid, he would go, he promised himself as he made willow bark tea to the tune of Gwalchmai's coughs and Daegal's moans. He would go, and he would take his poison with him. Then Gwalchmai would be able to hunt with Gwenhwyfar again instead of trying to take care of the fading Daegal when he was so sick himself. Then Daegal would start eating without prodding. Then Nyneve would sing without gasping for breath, and Freya wouldn't bleed at the slightest provocation while she worked in her garden.

It would do them no good if he left now; starvation was not a preferable fate to illness. He had to wait, he persuaded himself. He had to.

He set the pot he'd brewed the tea in down with more force than was strictly necessary.

"Merlinus?" Modred tugged at his tunic hesitantly.

Merlinus turned to face him and knelt down so he could look him in the eye, but he was careful not to touch him. Modred and Gwenhwyfar were the only two he hadn't made sick yet. He had to keep it that way, or he'd never be able to leave and save the others. "What's happened?"

"There's a man coming soon," Modred said, lip trembling. "He's going to take you away."

Merlinus's breath caught. "Away like Gaius went away?"

Modred shook his head. "Away like Morgan went away," he said accusingly, like that was worse.

Maybe it was, in a way. He didn't blame her for leaving, was glad she was safely away from him and with a family that wanted her, but he wished sometimes that she could have taken the other well ones with her. Gaius hadn't chosen to die of lung fever (lung fever, just lung fever, he hadn't killed his father, he _hadn't_ ), but Morgan had chosen to ride away.

"I won't leave," he promised. "Not unless I have to, to protect you."

"I don't need protecting," Modred said.

"Everyone needs protecting sometimes," Merlinus said automatically. That was what Gaius had always said. "Take the tea out to Gwalchmai, will you? I need to do something with these poppy seeds."

Modred's mouth twisted, but he did as he was told.

Merlin was just reaching for the poppy seeds when he heard Gwenhwyfar scream.

The advantage to living in a crumbling villa was that he rarely had to worry about using a door. There was usually a hole in the wall that would work just as well. It was less convenient in the winter, of course, but for now -

Perhaps he'd get to poison someone deserving for a change.

Gwenhwyfar had pressed herself tightly against the stone wall at the bottom of the hill. She'd leveled her bow at a man who stood frozen with his hand still on his horse's bridle.

Which would have been less alarming if the man hadn't had half a dozen heavily armed friends all very focused on Gwenhwyfar.

Merlinus didn't know what had happened, and for the moment, he couldn't afford to care. He all but flew down the hill.

No weapons. No Gaius to talk them down. Just a slow poison that might leave the men dead in a year but wouldn't do him any good now.

One of the men had been edging closer to Gwenhwyfar. He was almost close enough to reach out and grab her arm -

"Don't touch her!" Merlinus yelled. Some of the men jumped. He had two bows aimed on him now, but he didn't care. He skidded to a stop beside his almost-sister and added, with a sudden burst of inspiration, "You didn't touch her, did you? Not even a little? The last time a visitor touched somebody, they were dead in a week."

The man jerked his hand back like he'd been burned.

The one Gwenhwyfar was aiming at spoke up. He sounded surprisingly calm. "What's going on here?"

Merlinus threw his hands up. "I think I should be asking you that! What do you think you're doing, wandering around a plague house? Didn't you hear her when she told you to back off?" He let his mouth drop open as if sudden realization had hit him. "You're not already sick, are you? Please don't tell me you're sick. We won't have time to cart off the dead at this rate."

Most of the warriors had started edging away. Merlinus ignored the part of him that was screaming its head off and stalked over to the nearest one. "Come on, let me see your hand. Any itching? Redness? Rashes? Bleeding around the nail?" He reached for the man's hand.

The warrior jerked it back. "I'm not touching anyone who's been in a plague house!"

"Well, it's a bit late for that now," he said patiently. "No, there's nothing for it, you're going to have to stay until we see if you've gotten it. I'm sure we can find more vomit bowls somewhere. Gwenhwyfar, why don't you go check? Oh, and see if Freya's stopped bleeding yet. Nyneve said she would help, but honestly, I expect she's passed out by now." He rolled his eyes at the still frozen leader. "You know how it is. One five minute coughing fit, and she thinks she's tough for not passing out."

The warriors looked about ready to bolt.

Then the leader started to clap. "Well played. Very well played, but I'm sure this is just a misunderstanding."

"What part of vomiting up blood are you misunderstanding?" Merlinus demanded.

The leader raised his eyebrows. "Much as I commend your acting skills, I assure you, they're not necessary. I only want to have a word with the healer they call Gaius. My men and I mean no harm, despite the impression we might have inadvertently given."

Gwenhwyfar hadn't lowered her bow. "I followed them for two miles," she told Merlinus. "They think they'll find a wizard here to help them win their battles."

"You are most skilled at stealth, my lady," the leader said slowly. "But I believe you may have misunderstood."

Gwenhwyfar's eyes never left him, but she still directed her words solely at Merlinus. "That torc's pure gold, and the others called him a king. He's too used to getting what he wants, I think, because when I told him he couldn't see Gaius, one his men drew his sword on me."

"That would be Kay," the leader interjected. "He can be . . . rash. I'm Artur. Why don't we discuss this calmly? Without weapons, perhaps."

"Let Gwenhwyfar go check on the others, and I'll talk about anything you want," Merlinus said.

"I can handle this," Gwenhwyfar said calmly. "You go check on the others."

"You can't tell them what they want to know about Gaius," Merlinus pointed out. "You weren't here." He said it gently, but it hit hard all the same. Gwenhwyfar flinched.

Artur was watching them carefully. "By all means."

Gwenhwyfar lowered her bow slowly. "If you hurt him, I will take every piece of plague infested clothing in our house, sell it to the people of your city, and use the profits to buy mead so that when I light whatever remains on fire, it'll burn fast." She started to stalk back up the hill.

The men watched her go with varying degrees of incredulity and alarm.

"I like her," Artur finally said. "What's this about something happening to Gaius?"

Merlinus took a deep breath. "He's dead," he said shortly. "Plague."

One way or another, that was true. It still cost him to say it.

Artur looked stricken. "How long?"

"Does it matter? He's gone, and if there was ever any wizardry in him, it's gone too."

They were fools if they thought Gaius had held the poison. Poisoned men didn't do what Gaius had.

"Did he have an apprentice?" one of the men asked.

_There's a man coming that will take you away._

Merlinus's breath caught in his throat, but he forced it out anyway. "Yes," he managed.

Artur's eyes were locked on his face. "You."

Nyneve singing until the coughing left her voice hoarse and cracking - Freya's skin, suddenly fragile, tearing open at the slightest pressure while she tried to grow the plants Gaius needed - Daegal telling stories to his sister until she couldn't hear them anymore, and he kept trying anyway, choking over the words - Gwalchmai running through the house with a mischievous laugh, getting slower and slower until one day it was easier not to get out of bed at all - Modred tugging at his tunic -

Gaius, coughing and coughing and coughing and coughing -

"Yes," Merlinus said, almost steadily. "Let me show you what he taught me." He turned and started walking up the hill. He didn't turn back to see if they would follow.

They did although some weren't happy about it.

"Why couldn't we see it from the bottom of the hill?" Kay complained.

"Not now, Kay," Artur said.

Artur didn't understand. Not yet. But Merlinus thought he had guessed better than the others.

There was the villa, blackened and looming. Merlinus led them through the same hole in the wall he'd run through. From there, it was a short walk to the one room that was still perfectly whole.

Gwenhwyfar looked up from tending Nyneve. Her bow was in the corner, so her hand drifted towards her knife. Modred darted up from where he'd been whispering something to Daegal and pushed himself between Merlinus and Artur.

Artur looked around in horror. "It really is a plague house."

"Behold," Merlinus said bitterly, "my magnificent powers."

He waited, arms spread, in terrified triumph. Artur might just order his men to burn the whole place down around them, but at this point, most everything that could burn already had. They were all dying anyway; why not speed it up a little?

He was breathing too fast again, but that was alright, because most of the warriors were beating a fast path out of the hall.

Artur was still there. Artur was looking at him with a sort of terrified determination, and that didn't bode well for any of them.

"What do you need?"

Merlinus blinked. "What?"

"I won a battle a fortnight ago," Artur said. "I won rather a lot of land. This land included, in fact. There are children on my land, they're dying, and you're the only one who seems to be able to stop that. What. Do. You. Need?"

Merlinus stared at him. He wanted to protest, to explain what was really going on, but Daegal, Deagal was coughing, and this was worse than Merlinus had ever heard it. How had it gotten this bad, this quickly?

"Hold him up," he ordered briskly, trying to hide the hint of panic in his voice. "I'll hold the bowl."

Artur did as he was told and that was a point in his favor right there.

Gwalchmai cracked his eyes open beside them as Daegal's fit began to wind down. "Modred says you've come to take Merlinus away," he rasped to Artur.

"He's not going anywhere without you," Artur promised him which was not, Merlinus noted, an actual answer.

Judging by the look on Modred's face, he didn't think it was either.

 

 _The First_ Peaceful _Meeting_

Merlin was getting too old for this. Running from the warprinces' men through ancient forests that got tetchy about being offered the proper sacrifices in exchange for protection was a young man's game, not one for a man who had been a youth in Vortigern's day and whose bones ached more every winter.

But every year on the solstice when it came time to consult Morgana, she always insisted it was not yet time for him to step down and seek out a path to Avalon.

He leaned against a tree and didn't bother to pretend that he wasn't out of breath. Will was the only one with him, and the rocks they'd had to climb to get here were sufficient excuse, or at least Will would be willing to pretend they were.

"Do you think she lies about the visions?" Merlin asked him idly.

Will didn't have to ask who he meant. There was only ever one she when it came to visions. Will shifted the heavy pack loading him down and grinned. "Worried she might still be offended about you spilling the wyvern blood on her, old man?"

"Old man yourself," Merlin grumbled. "Vortigern wasn't cold in his grave when you were born."

"Ah, but you were there to see him crowned." Will's grin faded. "You aren't really worried, are you? It's still a month before she gets to declare whether or not you've fulfilled your destiny as our leader yet. That's plenty of time to get back on her good side if she's holding a grudge. Or I could have a little talk with her, if you like," he added as an afterthought. The deceptively pretty tattoos that marked him as a deathbringer glowed slightly.

Merlin gave him a flat look and pretended Will wasn't dead serious about his offer.

They did a lot of pretending these days.

He tried for a cheery grin. "Never mind. She's too good of a seer to lie."

Merlin was nearly certain she'd been lying for years and was too stubborn to admit it, but surely not even she could pretend that this was destiny's will for much longer. Merlin's magic was as strong as ever, but it wasn't enough to keep the warprinces from spilling his people's blood across the forest floor. Warprince Arthur in particular had gotten far too good at slicing through his illusions and setting fire to the trees that tried to hide them. Merlin's people's loyalty might blind them, but not even that could deafen them to the forest's whispers for much longer.

Merlin was old. He was tired. He missed walking the paths to Avalon's shores as he had done in his youth. These days, he didn't dare. The forest would lead him there, surely enough, but he doubted it would let him return. It had loaned him too much time as it was even if he didn't fully look it.

But Avalon and its peace would have to wait until the warprinces no longer cut his people down like they were wheat at the harvest.

Which meant, in practical terms, that he would never see it at all. Avalon was a rest for chieftains of old who waited to be called again, not an afterlife for those too stubborn to see their time had come and who remained until they were killed, and I blame Morgana probably wouldn't convince the fey to see it otherwise.

She probably did it out of fondness, but she did him no favors.

Just as he did his people no favors by putting this out of his mind.

"Warprince Arthur has emerged victorious from the infighting," he told Will quietly. "He's been crowned king."

"May he grow fat and useless quickly," Will said, miming a mocking toast. "There's our reprieve over, but at least he won't be out here chasing us anymore."

"Absolutely," Merlin said, just a little too quickly.

Will groaned. "Merlin . . . "

Merlin winced. "He sent a raven. He wants to meet."

"No," Will said instantly.

"Just me," Merlin said reassuringly. "Not the rest of the chiefs - "

" _No._ You _idiot._ "

"Well, give me some better options, then!" Merlin snapped. "We can't spend this winter running, Will. We barely survived the last one, and it was mild enough. This one . . . " He waved a hand at the snow already dusting the ground and the way their breath hovered visible in the air.

"It's just a bit of snow," Wil said defensively.

"Yes," Merlin said with a manically wide grin. "Except, technically, it's not even supposed to be winter yet, Will! We need peace!"

"What makes you think he doesn't just want your head on a stake?" Will demanded. "You honestly think changing out his war banner for the king's is going to have turned him into a reasonable man?"

"I think the children are starving, the deathbringers are dying, and the mages are killing themselves trying to work enough magic to save us all. If I'm the man to stop it, why not like this? If I'm not, what does the tribe lose?"

Will stared at him like he'd grown two heads. "You. It loses you. And you'll lose your _head._ If you're _lucky."_

Merlin's lips twitched. "So you're coming with me then?"

Will threw his hands up in the air. "How did someone with such a sensible mother turn out to be so utterly insane?"

"I blame my father," Merlin said, using Will's distraction and a bit of magic to start floating some of the items weighing down Will's pack into his own.

"Your father was a bard. A bard, Merlin. Not a berserker, not a seer, not even the village drunk. A bard."

"So was I, in my youth," Merlin pointed out.

"Fair enough. Bards are crazy," Will ceded. He snatched the pot out of the air before it could bury itself in Merlin's pack. "Try that again, and I'll start carrying your pack too, see if I don't," he threatened.

"I don't need coddling," Merlin grumbled, pushing himself fully upright and reaching for his staff. It would be a long walk to the new king's camp.

Will was kind enough not to say anything about the sharp coughs that plagued him all the way uphill, but he did have a bitterly triumphant glare on his face.

Merlin considered whacking him with his staff, but that would mean he wasn't using it for support, and on balance (hah) that didn't seem like a particularly good idea.

. . .

The warcamp had taken up residence in Baron Gaheris's hill fort. The thick log walls made Merlin nervous and Will even more so, but they were in no position to bargain. A traditional warcamp wouldn't have been much easier to escape; the open air would have provided only an illusion of safety. Merlin might have been able to shift himself into a bird and escape, but Will couldn't, and Merlin wouldn't have left him behind, a fact Will had grudgingly learned to accept.

Walking through the courtyard to the hall where they were to meet the king made the back of his neck prickle as he waited for arrows or for the bar to be dropped onto the gate. The warriors they passed didn't seem much happier. They stood in respectful lines, but their eyes kept dropping to Merlin's staff and Will's tattoos.

Aren't we a jumpy lot, Merlin thought sourly. This was doomed to fail and he knew it. He wouldn't have even tried it except, well, it was Arthur. Which wasn't a good enough reason to even think too loudly, let alone tell someone else, but despite everything, he could never quite shake the tiny part of him that insisted he could trust Arthur.

That part of him had cost him three scars and a perfectly good staff, but it was the same part of him that had whispered to him how and when Vortigern would die, so he couldn't help but hope that maybe, maybe . . .

King Arthur was waiting impatiently outside the doors to the hall. A ridiculously tall and burly knight was standing behind him with his arms crossed and much the same expression on his face that was on Will's. The if-you-insist-on-doing-this-stupid-thing-at-least-I'm-here-to-kill-the-first-person-to-touch-you look. It was strangely comforting.

Ah, Endurance, part of him whispered.

Cryptic pronouncements were all well and good, but Merlin really wished that that they'd have the courtesy to at least not be ambiguous to the person they presented themselves to.

And then suddenly he was almost within sword's reach of Arthur, and he was having to press down his magic's instinctive certainty that someone was about to die.

Merlin managed to tear his eyes away from the weapons strapped to Arthur's waist. He was far too familiar with most of them.

Although to be fair, Arthur probably didn't have too many fond memories of his staff, either.

Except Arthur wasn't staring at his staff. He was staring at Merlin's eyes, and Merlin wasn't sure what expression it was crossing Arthur's face, but suddenly it was making him even more nervous than the various weapons in the vicinity. At least the weapons made sense.

"You came," Arthur said with more satisfaction than was strictly necessary.

"You don't sound surprised," Merlin noted.

Arthur grinned and Merlin wasn't sure if he should run or smile back. "Well, I needed to find you, so I kept coming up with plans until I hit on one my advisors said only a madman would go for. Since they were the same ones that said no one would be insane enough to attack Glastonbury with only sixty men, and you did it alone . . . "

Merlin winced. Will still hadn't forgiven him for that one. Neither had his bad leg.

His throat itched. He tried in vain to swallow it down. Not here, not here -

It felt like ten minutes before he emerged from a coughing fit that left him gasping and hastily wiping tears from his eyes.

Will was in front of him, arms bared and with a warning growl snarling out of his throat. Most of the warriors had a hand on their weapons like they thought the coughing fit was some sort of sneak attack, but Arthur had a hand up to stop them from acting.

"You don't look well."

"You look the same as ever," Merlin managed. It came out a bit snippily. "And that's not a compliment."

Not very diplomatic, but it made Arthur laugh, so maybe Morgana's prediction that his tongue would be the death of him could be held off for a bit longer. "Come on. There's a fire inside."

Will stepped back to Merlin's side. Merlin raised an eyebrow. "You're very concerned about my health for someone who's repeatedly tried to take my head off with a battle-ax."

A strange smile quirked Arthur's mouth. "Let's just say kingship has . . . changed my perspective on some matters."

"Enough to talk peace?"

Arthur met his gaze steadily. "Enough to do just about anything to get it."

It could just be a trap, but they were already here within the walls. What would one more set of them hurt?

"A fire, you say?" He started forward slowly.

"And meat roasting over it," Arthur promised. His eyes darted over Merlin and seemed to catch on the way his belt overlapped too much around his waist.

"If you start in on my not eating enough, I'm going to think Morgana's possessed you," Merlin warned him as he passed him into the hall.

Arthur startled a little, but he covered the moment with a snort. "Don't be ridiculous."

Merlin couldn't help but notice that his plate seemed abnormally full, all the same.

 

_The First Prophecy_

The boy huddled in the back of his cell. It was always so cold here. Why did it have to be so cold?

He remembered fire. He remembered the screams that had come with it and the sound of steel too, but he didn't like to think about those. He thought about the fire instead, and the warmth of a woman's arms as she'd cradled him and sang a pretty song in his ear.

She had called him something, he remembered, but he couldn't remember what, and he hadn't seen her since three cells ago. No one who had vanished for more than one cell change had ever come back.

A bit of light started to glow outside the bars of his cell. He shut his eyes tightly and whimpered. Someone was coming, and he'd only just finished the bread he'd been tossed. It was never good when someone came without food.

He cracked his eyes open, just a bit, when the footsteps came closer and stopped outside the bars. He shut them again quickly when he saw who it was.

It was the sharp man with the shiny hair. If it had been the woman who came sometimes, that would have been alright. She liked to hear about her future, and if he did a good job telling it, she would stroke his hair through the bars and tell him that someday she would get him a better cell. If it had been the grey man, that might have been alright too. He kicked the boy sometimes, and he shouted a lot, but lately he'd grown quiet, and the kicks didn't hurt as much.

But the sharp man was angry, and now that he was wearing the gold thing the grey man always wore, he would be angrier still. He hadn't wanted the gold thing. He had wanted to save the grey man.

The bars creaked open. The boy curled in on himself and bit his lip to stop himself from crying out. He had tried to help the sharp man save the grey one, he had, but he didn't understand the things he said any better than they did. He didn't even understand all the words.

The sharp man was close now, too close, but he had knelt down next to the boy instead of shouting. "Look at me."

The words were softer than he'd heard in a long time, and maybe this would be all he wanted. He had to look to give a prophecy. A prophecy wasn't so bad.

He looked and the words tumbled out without his permission.

"Half the Table's already dead, and half the remainder hate you. Endurance is gone, Strength despises you, and Honor's loyalty is stained by despair. Love hasn't abandoned you yet, but she'll choose Chivalry before the end. Vengeance - " He bit down hard on his tongue. Vengeance was pretty and nice and stroked his hair. And he knew better than to give a prophecy like this, he knew better, but the effort of holding the words back made it feel like his chest would burst.

But the sharp man just kept looking at him steadily. "What of Magic?"

The boy shivered. The sharp man had understood what he said when even the boy didn't, and people were never happy when they figured out what the prophecies meant.

The sharp man raised a hesitant hand. The boy flinched back. The man lowered it instantly.

"It's alright," he said. "I - " He lowered his head, looking ashamed. "What about Magic?" He sounded almost like he was pleading. The boy knew what pleading sounded like.

"Magic doesn't have a choice," the boy whispered. "It doesn't get to vote."

The sharp man looked like he'd heard those words before and didn't like remembering them. "A wise woman once said that everyone has a choice," he said. "Sometimes it's just easier to think you don't."

The boy didn't know what he was talking about, but he wasn't shouting. He always shouted before he started hitting, so that was alright.

The sharp man reached for him again, but it didn't hurt when he laid his hand on the boy's arm. "It's going to be alright," he said. "Come on." He got to his feet and offered the boy a hand.

The boy stared at it. The sharp man sighed and reached down to take his hand and pull the boy to his feet.

"Am I going to a new cell?" he asked quietly. The grey man had moved him to a different cell after the first time he heard the boy prophesy.

The sharp man's hand tightened. "Somewhere better," he promised. "I'm going to fix this."

Part of the boy wanted to warn him that no one could fix the words, but he didn't want to risk losing the somewhere better.

He stumbled a bit as the sharp man led him up the hallway. He hadn't walked this far in a long time.

The sharp man stopped. The boy flinched back, but the sharp man just picked him up like the woman in the fire had done.

"I'm going to fix this, Merlin," the sharp man said again, so low the boy could barely hear.

Merlin. The boy mouthed the word. It wasn't what the woman had called him, but it was close enough.

The sharp man wasn't very sharp anymore. Maybe he should start calling him the shiny man instead.

 

_The Sword_

The Emrys made his way between the narrow rows of tents. Calling them tents was generous in most cases, really. No one had been planning on an extended camping tree when this started, and it showed.

Arthur was sitting by a small fire outside one of the only real tents that they had. Arthur had tried to protest, but the Emrys had insisted.

The Emrys dropped down beside him and stared in silence at the fire for a while, waiting for Arthur to speak. When he didn't, the Emrys sighed.

"I'm supposed to be an old man, you know."

Arthur looked up at him. "What?"

"The Emrys is supposed to be a wise elder, not a young dollophead. Right now, though, I'm the best they've got, and I've learned to make that good enough. You were born to be king, Arthur. Younger than you expected or not, you will be good enough. There's no possible world where you wouldn't be." And the Emrys knew that better than most. He'd glimpsed some of those worlds in his dreams.

"For a leader of a rebellion against the Pendragons, you're amazingly supportive," Arthur said drily.

"For a Pendragon, you're amazingly non-stabby."

Arthur stared at him.

"What?"

Arthur shook his head. "I'm just trying to wrap my head around the fact that one of the most feared men in Albion just said 'non-stabby.'"

"It's a perfectly good word!"

"Of course it is." Arthur shook his head again. "It helps that I don't have anything to be 'stabby' with."

The Emrys tried to look apologetic. "We thought it best to be careful until we knew how you'd take the news of your regent's death."

Something dark flitted over Arthur's face. "Agrivain got what was coming to him."

"And on that happy note," he said cheerily, "it's my pleasure to announce that we got a new sword for you."

"What was wrong with my old one?"

The Emrys winced. "Parsifal got a little . . . twitchy."

Parsifal had vaporized the sword, but there was no need to get into all the details.

"In better news, Lance has forged you a new one," he added brightly as he pushed himself to his feet. "Follow me."

Arthur hurried after him. "I thought Lance was camped over by the road."

The Emrys waved a hand. "You know Lance's sense of the dramatic."

He could have sworn he heard Arthur mutter, "Lake or stone?"

He must have overheard Lance and Parsifal arguing that point earlier. Little did he know that the Emrys had been called in to settle the argument.

Why choose between lake or stone when you could so easily stick the stone in the lake?

 

_The Golden Age_

"What's the name today?" Arthur didn't even look up from his paperwork at the sound of the balcony door closing.

"Merlin," the intruder decided. "And you really need to be more careful. What if it had been someone else?"

Arthur's pen froze in its progress across the parchment. "Merlin?" he repeated.

"Of course that's the part you care about," he grumbled, crossing the room to crouch in front of the fire. "Yes, Merlin. It's a kind of falcon. I thought I'd stick with the theme."

Arthur started writing again. "You're starting to get predictable."

"And your tells are just as obvious as ever. I can pick another name if this one bothers you that much." The remains of Arthur's dinner were sitting on a table by the fire. Merlin started to wolf them down. "You need to start eating more, by the way. What did you do, take one bite and say you were done?"

"I'm fine," Arthur snapped. "I'm fine, the name's fine, everything's fine."

Merlin hunted through the greens on the plate for another piece of chicken. "Everything except for the situation with Mercia."

Arthur groaned. "Please don't tell me Bors was fool enough to make a deal with the sidhe."

Merlin considered that. "Does it still count as Bors doing it if he's possessed?"

Arthur's goblet hitting the opposing wall wasn't quite an answer, but it was close enough. Merlin was more interested in the strawberries that had been hiding at the bottom of the bowl.

"Will any contracts he makes be binding?"

Merlin winced. "If he makes them as Bors? No. If he makes them as king? Only once he goes through the ceremony again. Which he's doing on the new moon, by the way."

"Of course he is."

Merlin didn't like the note of resignation in Arthur's voice. "Don't worry. I'll take care of it."

"You, alone. Against an army of sidhe bodyguards. Yes, Merlin, that's a fantastic idea." The sarcasm in his voice was heavy enough to outweigh the treasury.

Merlin shrugged. "It'll be just like the Catha job."

"You came back from that half-dead from that changeling's poisoned arrows."

"I got the job done, didn't I? You're focusing on the wrong details here," Merlin argued.

"Your luck will run out eventually," Arthur said.

It wasn't luck, but Arthur didn't need to know that, so he just said, "I knew you liked me. Deep, deep down."

"Don't let it go to your head."

Merlin grinned. "No worries. I am fully aware of my expendable status." He abandoned what remained of the food and stretched. "I'll go take care of the Bors problem. Do me a favor, will you?"

Arthur had been king too long to agree automatically. His eyes narrowed. "What?"

Merlin headed to the balcony doors so that he'd have an easy escape. "Don't marry Gwen."

Arthur stared at him. "That's not a favor, that's a declaration of war. I signed a treaty with King Leodegrance a fortnight ago!"

Merlin winced. "Well, if I'd been here a fortnight ago, I'd have told you not to sign it. My opposing number's been at her side for years, and if she's not bewitched six ways to Sunday by now, I'm just a poor, lost farmer's boy."

Merlin always hated it when the news he brought gave Arthur that pinched look.

"I thought Morwena was in Lot's Kingdom."

"Morwena's flexible."

"That's not an actual answer, you know." Arthur pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. "I can put off the wedding while you take care of Bors. After that . . . "

"I'll take care of it, sire," Merlin promised him.

Arthur's eyes flew open. "No assassinations this time."

That would make things more difficult, but he smiled innocently. "Who? Me?"

Then he slipped out onto the balcony before Arthur could start throwing things.

Free in the night, he shed the assumed name as easily as a cloak. Once he was sure he was out of sight of the guards, he shed the glamour too. The magic always itched like crazy.

The grey skin of a changeling was barely noticeable in the moonlight. His grimace when he looked down at his hands wasn't noticeable either.

He couldn't choose where he had been born, but as long as no one found out about that, he could choose a side.

And if it was a choice that was almost instinctual, well, that was no one's business but his own.

 

_The Beginning of the End_

Myrddin eyed Sir Ywain beadily from his perch on the back of his king's chair. If the man didn't stop stammering out excuses for his decision to withdraw his men, Myrddin wasn't going to be able to resist the urge to start pecking at his eyes.

Sir Ywain finished proving himself a pathetic excuse for a man of honor and bowed his way out of the tent. Myrddin fluttered down to the floor.

The king didn't look up from where he was sharpening a dagger. The lines around his eyes were even more pronounced than usual. "You know, when I asked you to send word, I meant for you to send a carrier pigeon, not to turn into a raven and come yourself, Lord Myrddin."

Myrddin let himself stretch back into his more formal shape. The tall, thin man with dark hair and icy blue eyes felt no different to him than any other form, but others seemed to prefer it, and it wouldn't do for someone to see the king talking to a bird. "I seem to recall your majesty once saying something to the effect that if a job is to be done right, it has to be done personally."

The king finally looked up. His sword arm was as strong as ever, and Myrddin would kill any man who said otherwise, but there was a weariness in his eyes that hadn't been there twenty years ago. "And does this job include telling me that your men are too badly needed at home to fulfill your oaths to defend Camelot?" There was a note of defeat in his voice that he'd hidden when he talked to Sir Ywain.

Myrddin's smile was too sharp to be entirely human. It also had too many teeth. "That was what Master Sigan wanted me to tell you."

Master Sigan had always raged whenever Myrddin brought him news he didn't like. His king, on the other hand, looked as is if he had been stabbed for a brief moment before he tried to smile.

"I've asked too much of you in recent years. No man could say you haven't fulfilled your debt to me a hundred times over, but if you want me to formally release you from your oath - "

"You didn't let me finish," Myrddin interrupted. "Master Sigan told me it was time to stop dividing my loyalties." His smile widened. "So I killed him and took over the Shadowlands. I left behind the bare minimum to keep the Seelie out. The rest will be here as reinforcements by tomorrow."

He probably shouldn't take this much pleasure from surprising his king.

"You staged a coup to get me reinforcements," his king said in a strangled voice.

"You're cursed to die at Camlann, my liege. That doesn't mean you have to die there now." He paused. "While we're on the subject, I should probably warn you to tell your sentries that about half the reinforcements are undead."

His king laid his dagger down on the table very carefully. "Undead," he repeated.

"They're very effective."

His king sighed, but he was fighting back a smile now. "That's not going to help the rumors that I've a necromancer sworn to me."

"I'm but a shifter, my liege," he said. "Of course, Lord Gawain, on the other hand . . . "

His king shook his head, smile full fledged now. "Only you, Merlin. Only you."

Myrddin cocked his head. "Sire?"

His king waved it off. "A slip of the tongue. My apologies."

It was the same slip of the tongue his king always suffered from when he was tired, concussed, or drugged, but Myrddin allowed him the evasion. Whoever it was his king saw when he wore this form, it seemed to bring him comfort, and Myrddin would never begrudge his king anything, certainly not a little thing like that.

He did wonder, sometimes, who this Merlin had been, and if he had anything to do with the pain that he'd never seen entirely leave his king's eyes.

But whatever the cause, Myrddin always seemed to help, so he asked if he might stay long enough for a meal before flying back to the troops he was leading in.

Sooner or later there'd be a reckoning for Master Sigan's death, and Morgana would lead her glittering Seelie down on them within a week, but he'd done everything he could there. For now, all he could do was try and make his king laugh and hope that somehow, that would be enough.

 

_The Parting_

"Guenevere's gone," Arthur said. His voice was flat. He didn't look like he'd been sleeping.

Merdyn strained inside his wooden prison, but it remained as impenetrable as before. Not even a word of sympathy could escape its groaning in the wind.

"So's Sir Launcelot. Your apprentice is being insufferable about it."

This time the groaning wood was the perfect expression of what Merdyn wanted to say. Arthur almost smiled.

"Galahad means well. He's just a little too eager to defend your memory by pointing out all the times that you were right and I was wrong." Arthur's voice was still too flat. "I should have listened to you, Merdyn. I'm sorry. I suppose I'm getting fatalistic about it all. It's hard to try and make things better when it never changes anything."

This was what happened when Merdyn wasn't there to shake some sense into him. Of course Arthur had changed things! What else did he call uniting all of England under one banner?

Arthur stood and rested his hand against the bark. "It may be a while until I can come see you again, old friend. Gareth and Elyan brought back word that Morgyn's been spotted on the Camlann shore."

If he could have moved, Merdyn would have been throwing himself against the bark. Not Camlann! Not against Morgyn! Not without Merdyn stuck here to wait and wait instead of by his king's side to protect him like he should be.

"I'll send Galahad," Arthur promised. "He'll make sure you're not left alone."

Then he turned to walk away.

_Arthur! No, no, please, no -_

Galahad came. Merdyn wished he hadn't.

He'd have rather never known for sure what had happened than to have been held helpless as Mordred's men rode his student down and left the body to rot in his roots.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honor is Sir Leon, if anyone was wondering.
> 
> I know a lot of these moments center on Arthur's change of behavior after taking the crown, but I just love that moment so much because from Arthur's perspective: "Oh, no, what have I done, well at least I have Merlin - " *snatches Merlin like the only rock in a storm*  
> Merlin's perspective: "So Arthur's a prat/dangerous maniac/trying to kill me . . . And now he's being nice to me. That's creepy. What's going on - Okay, think later, life threatening situation now."
> 
> And then later never comes.
> 
> Next chapter won't be up for another few days. It'll deal with Arthur returning and will touch base with some of the universes we've seen from Arthur's perspective. Not all the one's seen here will make an appearance there, so if there's something you want, speak up! As ever, I make no promises, but I do what I can.
> 
> Also for the record: In the first section, it's Mordred poisoning everybody, not Merlin, and it's got nothing to do with blood and everything to do with intention. Merlin's actually the only reason the other's are still alive even if he doesn't realize it. I've got backstory there if anybody wants it.


	2. After

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for character death, referenced torture, disturbing imagery, debilitating injury, and memory problems.
> 
> If you're fine with the rest of the works in the series, you should be fine with this chapter, but I felt like I should put the warnings up anyway.

_Sometimes, Things Went Wrong_

The Emrys was supposed to be old, but he was never supposed to be _this_ old. His joints were positively unmanageable these days.

But Arthur still hadn't risen from the lake, and the Emrys had promised to wait for him, so here he was.

"And you had better appreciate this," he grumbled at the lake. "I could be off exploring the New World instead of sitting around on the off chance that you're going to wake up sometime soon and need some explanations."

"Emrys?" Nemine said gently.

Too gently. Just because they'd argued earlier was no reason for her to treat him like glass now.

"I made supper." She held up a bowl of stew. It certainly smelled better than the meals he had to cook for himself every time his student visited the village.

But his magic roiled sickly within him, and he didn't think he could eat a bite. It always got bad near the anniversary of . . . well. The end. Normally it didn't get this bad this quickly, but by now he was resigned to it.

"You have to eat something," she said, eyes pleading.

He could never resist that look.

"Fine," he conceded. He could at least try to keep some down.

She smiled as he took it and started eating, but it faded quickly. She sat next to him on the grass. "Tell me the story again."

Not going to treat him like glass after all, it seemed. "Our people had opposed the Pendragons ever since Uther took the throne," he began. His voice was as past its prime as the rest of him, but he could still tell this story just fine.

"Not that part."

He stalled for a few precious moments by forcing more of the stew down. He could pretend she wanted one of the smaller stories that she'd loved when she was a child. He could start the story about Lance and the grey dragon or the funny one about Lionel and the cursed daisy chain.

But he knew better than to think that was what she wanted now.

"It's late," he tried, setting the bowl aside.

She stopped staring across the lake and turned to face him. "Emrys."

"You've heard it before," he reminded her desperately.

"It needs to be told again. They were our people, Emrys! Has a hundred years really made you forget?"

That was too far. He lurched to his feet. "I am not the one who doesn't remember!" The words echoed with a thread of his old power. Nemine flinched, and he gentled his voice. "You were a child then," he reminded her. "The memories are not so painful for you." To his old eyes she looked like little more than a child now. Thus far, at least, the spells he'd wrought to make sure he wouldn't lose the last of his people held firm.

Nemine was on her feet too. He'd never seen her eyes blazing that fierce. "Tell me. Tell me again how you left them vulnerable to go save your precious king! Tell me again how you abandoned them - "

"They should have been safe!" he roared back. "They - " A stabbing pain shot through his stomach. He wavered.

Nemine grabbed his arm and steadied him, but her nails bit hit into his fragile skin hard enough to draw blood. "Tell me again how your precious Arthur will rise again and make everything right while our people are no more than dust," she hissed.

"Nemine," he said. The word came out half-choked. "Something's wrong."

"All that magic," she said bitterly, "all that magic, and you just use it to wait for him. All the magic of our people left for us and us alone, and all you can think to do with it is wait for a failed king."

The Emrys tried to draw breath to answer, but his throat felt as if it were in a vise. He doubled over.

Nemine let go of his arm and let him fall. He hit the grass hard. He couldn't see it properly. It was just a mass of green.

"Well, you can wait here for the rest of time as far as I'm concerned," she spat. The words sounded very far away. "I'll even keep your grave marker nice and clear so that if that king of yours ever does show up, he'll know right where to find you."

His magic roiled desperately inside him, but he didn't have the breath to say the words to draw it out.

Arthur. Arthur would need him. He had to - He needed to -

"But you meant well, I suppose, and you were good to me." Nemine's words were as faint as the wind. "I won't make you wait to die."

He could just see her kneeling beside him. Something glinted in her hand.

Arth-

 

_Very, Very Wrong_

Sixteen hundred years, he had waited. Sixteen hundred years, and still Arthur hadn't returned. Apparently, four world wars, untold diseases, and disaster after disaster weren't cause enough for him.

Merlin had taken matters into his own hands.

And Destiny had only allowed him to return twenty years later? Twenty years later, when the only threat was still Merlin and when he was no more of a threat than before?

He hadn't understood. He still didn't understand. There was no reason for Arthur to be there now when he hadn't been before, and the man claiming to be Arthur had made a mistake. He couldn't be the real Arthur.

He _had_ made a mistake, hadn't he? He had mentioned cliffs at the final battle at Camlann, and there hadn't been any of those, had there?

 _Sixteen hundred years,_ part of him whispered. _Sixteen hundred years of hearing twisted versions of that story. Do you really trust your own memory now?_

Merlin leaned against the stone wall and tried not to sob, because he didn't trust anything now. Certainly not his own mind. He knew all too well what tricks it could play.

_He's gotten everything else right. Are you sure he isn't the real thing?_

No. He couldn't be. He couldn't be, because Merlin had hurt him, and he would never, ever, hurt Arthur, so this couldn't be Arthur, this wasn't Arthur -

He steeled himself and walked back into the cell.

The man that claimed to be Arthur was singing. The old lullaby sounded nothing like it was supposed to in his hoarse and cracked voice, but Merlin knew those words. He knew the faint hint of a tune that managed to worm its way out.

He could barely breathe, but the last few lines came out of their own accord.

"My mother sang that to me," he choked out. "I sang it when - when - "

"When I was dying. Or every other week, in other words. You have a habit of pulling off miracles."

Arthur. Not an imposter, not a lie, not a trick of a straying mind. Arthur.

He had hurt Arthur.

There was no fixing that, not really, but his magic sprang to do the best it could anyway.

Everything blurred into gold as he tried to do everything at once. He didn't realize that he'd done too much and that he was falling until he felt Arthur catch him.

Sixteen hundred years he'd waited for this moment. Sixteen hundred years, and this moment was all he would ever get, because Arthur might catch him on instinct, but that was all he would do. The threat he'd been called back to deal with had been Merlin, after all, and Arthur had always done his duty.

He _hoped_ Arthur would do his duty. He couldn't live through sixty years of watching from a distance as Arthur built everything he had waited for. He didn't want to.

But for this one moment, everything was alright. Arthur was here and alive and apparently too lost in the post magic rush to be busy hating him.

Then that moment passed, and he was pulling away, and Merlin wanted to hold on, but after all he'd done, he knew better than to think that he deserved to.

He forced himself to let go and step away.

Arthur was talking again, and he didn't understand - Any of it, really, and he especially didn't understand the look in Arthur's eyes which seemed almost fond.

But Arthur wanted to go home, and he could do that. He'd have to face the consequences for his mountain of mistakes later, he was sure, but for now he could pretend that all would be well.

And if another threat arose, if Arthur needed him to deal with it . . . Maybe it would work out.

(Problems arose but never anything where Merlin's magic was absolutely essential. Yet somehow, later never arrived.)

 

_Sometimes, Things Could Be Fixed_

Merlinus crouched over Gwenhwyfar. "Here we are again," he said weakly.

"I think I liked the first time better," Gwenhwyfar whispered. A string of coughs followed the words.

"The villa smelled better than the tunnels, that's true," he agreed. "Although there was one time, I found some quite lovely catacombs that smelled of incense."

Gwenhwyfar looked around at the dripping, stinking metal tunnel. The moans of the sick bounced around it. She refrained from commenting on that and instead said, "While we were gone?"

While they were gone. That was one way to describe the endless years he'd spent lying with his body frozen, and his mind free to roam the earth with no one able to see him.

Gwenhwyfar squeezed his hand. Her hands were sweating. "Modred - " She coughed. "Modred has a lot to answer for."

He pushed as much magic as he dared into her. Healing, not poison. He wished he'd known that all along.

Then he forced himself to get to his feet and splash through the fetid water in the center of the tunnel so he could get to the next patient.

The next patient was dead.

It was better than the hospitals, he reminded himself. Any chance was better than none at all.

He pushed himself on to the next and the next and the next -

_Why, Modred?_

He tried not to think about Modred's answer, the one time he'd dared to ask.

_Because of you._

This wasn't his fault. He wasn't poisoning them. He never had poisoned them. He was healing them, helping them. It wasn't his fault.

_Because of you._

Freya gave him an exhausted smile as she passed him a cup of water. He tried to smile back.

"The burners! The burners!" Gwalchmai burst through the grate at the entrance to the tunnel. "The burners are coming!"

Merlinus spun. "Freya, take - "

Take who? They were worse off than they had been even a week ago. There was a side tunnel they could run down, but there were more than a dozen of them that couldn't run.

"I'm not running," Freya told him, voice shaking.

Gwalchmai set his chin. "I'm not running either."

"You're not a warrior anymore!" Merlinus forced himself not to shout it. "You're eight years old! You can't fight the burners."

"And you're a healer," he pointed out. "You can't fight either."

He could hear the terrible marching footsteps now.

His eyes burned. "Close the grate," he ordered in a choked whisper.

Gwalchmai hurried to fit it back into place. The padlock jangled against it as his shaking hands tried to put it back into place.

The burners came into view.

"Gwalchmai, get back!"

The black weapons were ready, rising, and Gwalchmai was white in the light of their dying flashlights, and he wouldn't get back in time -

The weapons crashed to the floor.

The captain of the burners pushed his way forward. He hadn't bothered with the useless breathing mask. He must have been smart enough to realize the disease spread as Modred and followers wanted it to, not as traditional rules said it should.

Of course he was.

"Artur?" Merlinus called, desperate hope creeping into his voice.

"How about I take your word for this being a plague house this time?" Artur called back.

Merlinus sagged in relief. "As long as you promise not to burn it down."

"No burning," Artur promised. "I've got something a little more effective than that. Kay?"

Kay held up a backpack that clinked when he moved it. "One stolen bag of cures, free today only."

"Congratulations, Kay," Merlinus said in a shaking voice. "You've finally made up for our first meeting."

 

_Sometimes, Not So Much_

The world was quiet.

It didn't like that. Quiet meant no food, and it was very hungry.

The world around it was grey and dull. _Office,_ a long forgotten part of it whispered. _This was your office when you worked for the newspaper._

It often had thoughts like this. It did not understand them. It only wished that there was more color. Color often meant food.

There was a scrap of paper on the floor. It had color. Bright gold and deep blue and something that looked like food, but that it couldn't eat.

_"Never seen you this excited over a politician before."_

_"He'll save us all. Just you wait."_

It did not know what it had needed saving from, but it remembered the excitement.

It wasn't sure why it stayed here where there was no food. It should be out looking for some, but the part of it that it did not understand had wanted to run here, and it did not know how to argue with itself.

_You have to stay away from Arthur until this can be fixed. You remember Arthur, don't you?_

It remembered food that looked like the food in the picture -

_No! Arthur isn't - No. He's Courage, remember? He's Courage, and you're Magic. You have to use that._

Magic. It liked magic. Magic was a flare of bright gold color. Magic had helped him get food before.

_It's dangerous out there. There's fire._

It didn't like fire or the nasty round things that the food kept trying to bury in its head, but it had the magic. It would be fine. It had the strange talking part to watch for danger and help keep it safe.

_I can't keep you inside, can I?_

No. It had to eat today or it wouldn't be strong enough to hunt.

 _Alright, then._ The talking part sounded strange. _Go where I tell you._

It was happy to follow the directions the talking part gave it. The talking part was leading it to food. Perhaps even the food from the picture.

_Yes. We're going to go see Arthur. He might be able to help._

Help not to be hungry?

_Not the way you mean, but one way or another, yes._

It did not know there was more than one way not to be hungry, but it trusted the voice.

Even if another little part of itself said that maybe it shouldn't.

 

_Sometimes, Arthur Has Changed_

A fixer of unusual problems, professionally known as the Hawk, known to a few select friends as Merlin, stared down at his illusion stripped hands.

The grey skin of a changeling stared back at him.

Once, in a Camelot he only just now remembered, he had allowed himself that luxury on dark nights when he was alone.

Here, in this modern age, artificial lights screamed down at him even at midnight. Now, reporters had converged on the site like crows after battle, their cameras flashing and catching every last condemning detail.

Every drop of blood on his hands would be displayed on the front page tomorrow. Every shimmer of grey would be uploaded to the net. Every last piece of evidence ready and waiting for the enforcers when they dragged him in.

The pain in his shoulder screamed like the lights, but Arthur was alright. That mattered even more now than it had before. Arthur was alright. The secret he had kept for two lifetimes was out, but his king was alright, and that was all that really mattered now.

Arthur tore his eyes from where Morwena lay dead upon the ground. His eyes widened as he took in his . . . friend? He liked to think they had been friends. Arthur had always been a bit reserved, of course, a bit separate, but that was only natural considering their separate stations -

Arthur ran forward. Merlin only managed to take a half-step back before Arthur was there.

Except he hadn't tackled him to the ground for the enforcers. He hadn't hit him for the lies.

He was . . . hugging him?

Merlin raised his arms hesitantly and awkwardly patted Arthur on the back. "Are you sure you want to be hugging a known changeling in public?" he asked.

"I'm the minister of defense. If I say they're not printing that picture, they're not printing that picture." He let go and scanned Merlin quickly. "Are you hurt?"

"Shoulder, a bit," he said warily. "I was thinking you'd be a bit more upset about this."

Arthur snorted. He looked like he was still on post adrenaline fumes. "You've been a warlock, a prophet, a seer, a magician, and Magic itself. The only thing you could surprise me with at this point was if you weren't magical somehow."

Merlin blinked. "What?"

Arthur grinned. "Later. After the reporters are managed."

Merlin had spent too long hunting down interesting information to let that one go entirely. "I'll hold you to that," he warned.

Arthur was still grinning. "I look forward to it."

 

_Sometimes, Arthur Tells the Truth_

"You know," his king told him, "there's a world where you're Seelie."

Myrddin choked on his cider. He set the glass down hard on the balcony railing. "There's no need to be insulting."

His king raised an eyebrow. "You accept that there are multiple realities without blinking, you accept that my memories has more holes than Swiss cheese with suggestions of magic you can try to fix it, you accept that there are worlds where we've nearly killed each other, but the idea of being Seelie is too much to take?"

"Well, how would you take the news that there was a world where you were on the wrong side?"

"Depends on what I'd already done in it," his king said drily. "It's happened more than once." He looked out over the dark water for a long moment. "You know, I think I'm technically on the wrong side in this one. In every other world, if I've sided with either of the faerie courts, it's been the Seelie."

Myrddin frowned. "Why side with the Unseelie then?"

"Well, the first time I met the Seelie, they were torturing someone," his king pointed out. "It didn't make a great first impression."

Myrddin grimaced. "Seeing as I was the one being tortured, I can't have made all that awe inspiring of the a first impression either."

His king shrugged. "Better than them. Besides. I'm too used to us being on the same side to change it up now."

 

_Sometimes, Arthur Doesn't Remember_

The iron housing of the Undercity wasn't ideal for an alchemist - when things exploded, they had a bad tendency to ricochet off the walls - but it was all Merlin could afford, and he could only afford this by skipping every other meal. Sleeping for a thousand years made it hard to have marketable job skills, particularly when you were lacking an ID number. This was all he could do for now.

There was a market for alchemy, at least, even if Merlin refused to get involved in the more unsavory parts of it. Love potions, poisons, the addictive taste of bottled joy . . . Those he would leave for others. A bit of keep-awake for workers on the never ending assembly lines, however, or a headache reliever for the girl who tried to keep track of the tenement's ever multiplying numbers of children, or a dream sweetener for the empty eyed survivors of the Dust Wars, those he could do. It would pay a lot better if his clients could afford more than spare change and favors, but all he had to do was scrape by until he found Arthur. Once he found Arthur, the rest wouldn't matter as much.

A knock reverberated angrily from the door. It didn't sound like one of his usuals, so Merlin grabbed a nice heavy flask from the shelf before he opened it. Some people wouldn't accept that some things he just wouldn't sell.

He kept the door between him and the hall and had the flask clutched tightly in his hand. It still wasn't enough to keep the flask from falling and shattering on the floor.

"Arthur!" He stepped back immediately to let him in. "How did you find me?"

Arthur's face was wary. "Have a scrying bowl, do you, Mr . . . "

Merlin's heart sank. "Emrys. Mr. Merlin Emrys." He looked at Arthur hopefully.

Arthur didn't so much as blink.

Instead, he pulled a badge out of his long black coat. "I'm Detective Pendragon. Thirteenth Precinct of the Regulators. I got a report that you were running an unlicensed alchemy business." He stepped through the still open door and scanned the room.

Glassware filled the rickety shelves. Three mixtures bubbled over a jury-rigged heating system. The walls were still blackened and dented from past mistakes.

Merlin tried anyway. "Actually, Detective - "

Arthur turned to him, eyebrows raised. "You're really going to try to argue this one? Really?"

"I don't think it counts as a business if I'm making less than the average beggar," Merlin said. "it's more of a gift exchange with friends, really."

"And would you care to name those friends?"

"These days, most of my friends are dead," Merlin said quietly. "Or imaginary, apparently."

That threw Arthur for a minute, but he still said, "Right. Hands behind your back, please, Mr. Emrys."

Merlin threw them up in the air instead. "You're arresting me? _Really?_ You come back after a thousand years and the first thing you do is arrest me, you - you prat!"

Arthur grabbed his arms and forced them behind his back. "Been sampling the merchandise, have we?"

"Oh, I'll show you merchandise," Merlin grumbled as he was shoved towards the door. "I've got a potion for donkey ears with your name on it."

"Threatening a Regulator can add up to five years to your sentence," Arthur informed him. "If, however, you would like to give a full accounting of any dangerous substances in your apartment so that they can be properly disposed of - "

"Touch anything in that room and you'll deserve what you get."

Arthur had guided him out the door and around the first corner of the hallway, but he was forced to stop.

The hallway was filled with at least twenty grubby children. Reza was frantically trying to herd them back to the stairs.

"We wanna see! We wanna see!" the kids clamored.

"Excuse me, miss?" Arthur's hand had gone to his weapon. The tenements weren't always kind to Regulators who went in alone.

Of course, normally those tenements were later crushed like empty cans of fizzy pop, but that didn't help whatever Regulator had gotten waylaid inside.

Reza spun and tried to smile. "G-Good morning, Officer. We - we heard there was some trouble about Mr. Merlin?"

Merlin didn't want to think of all the ways this could go bad. "It's nothing, Reza. Just a misunderstanding."

Her eyes darted to his cuffed hands.

"Whatever you think he's done, he hasn't, sir," she told Arthur. "He's always been very kind to the kids. He fixed Ili's cough, and Maggie's lice, and he even got Matty's leg right again. Matty wouldn't have been able to go back to work without him, and half the kids would have died last winter of the Smoke Fever without him - "

"I'm afraid he's not licensed, miss," Arthur said, stone faced.

That look usually meant he wasn't entirely certain he was doing the right thing but didn't see any alternatives. That would have been fine, except feeling like that usually made him angry, and this was the wrong place for him to explode.

Reza bit her lip. "Farid needs his medicine, sir, and Merlin's the only one - "

"Please get out of the way, miss."

"I've got some money," she said desperately. "You could say you couldn't find him - "

"Bail money doesn't work like that," Merlin interrupted before she could get herself arrested for trying to bribe a government official. "And I'm pretty sure bail costs more than what you keep hidden in the closet."

Reza's family's apartment didn't have a closet so much as it _was_ a closet. Merlin, on the other hand, had a tiny closet covered by a grey curtain where he kept the goods that were already mixed up.

 _Top shelf, blue bottle,_ he mouthed and hoped that she understood and Arthur wouldn't catch her rummaging for Farid's medicine.

Reza swallowed hard and started pulling children out of the way. "Come on. Clear a path for the officer."

She wasn't crying. Tenement kids didn't cry. She looked like she wanted to, though.

Arthur pushed him on toward the staircase a little harder than was necessary.

"When you get your memory back, you're going to owe me an apology," Merlin informed him. "And you're going to owe all those kids a chicken dinner. A real one, none of this synth stuff."

"If you don't have information to share, don't talk," Arthur growled. His hand was gripping Merlin's arm tight enough to bruise.

Unfortunately for him, babbling was Merlin's coping mechanism, and he had a lot to cope with at the moment. Like Arthur taking him to jail while the kids needed him.

"So now you're telling me to shut up? That brings back all sorts of memories. If your men destroy any of my supplies, you're buying me new ones, by the way. Better ones."

Arthur finally got them to the bottom floor. He all but ripped open the door and shoved Merlin out into the flickering lights of the fading neon signs that were everywhere in this sector of the Undercity.

The rattle-cage was waiting, and it was already overcrowded. People, many of them in desperate need of some sanitizing wipes, were pressed up against the iron bars. Occasionally, the defensive system would flicker back into brief life and send a shock of electricity up them, but there was no way for the people to move back.

"If you put me in that thing, you lose your right to complain when I call you a dollophead," Merlin said flatly. "You lose your right to complain about that for _life."_

Arthur's face was doing that war-between-right-and-duty thing again, but without his memories in place, Merlin already knew which would win.

"Gawain, come out here and help me with this one. I don't want anyone getting out while I'm putting him in."

The driver hopped off the box and patted the automated horses attached to the rattle-cage as he dodged around them. He had an electrified baton in his other hand.

Merlin glared at him. "You're also going to owe me an apology. And a new box of tea, because you and dollophead here are the reason mine is currently burning upstairs."

Gawain stood guard as Arthur shoved Merlin into the wagon. It took some effort. Merlin was pressed between a sobbing woman with dilated eyes and a heavily bruised brawler who looked like he might be bleeding out. Merlin didn't have room to do anything but press especially hard against his arm and hope the pressure would slow the bleeding.

"Two boxes of tea!" he shouted as the rattle-cage started up again. "And a new shirt!"

 

_Sometimes, Merlin Doesn't_

The man with hair as gold as the medals on his uniform was back again today. Mersan was glad to see him. If the man had time to be here, than the dragons weren't attacking the fort again, and that always helped him sleep a little better. One of the healers had cast a spell on his room when she realized how much hearing the alarm bell upset him, but he'd rather be upset now and then when the alarm rang than constantly sit wondering if fire was about to come down from the roof and roast them all.

He'd tried to tell her this, but his throat was too badly burned for the words to come out quite right, and his hands shook too badly these days for him to write. If she'd been a druid, he could have just told her mind to mind, but the druid healers were too busy with the freshly wounded to come see him. The nurse was just an ordinary caster, so she'd just straightened the blankets and told him not to worry about a thing.

She meant well, Mersan supposed, but he'd been fighting too long not to worry about how they were doing fighting without him, even if they'd been doing it for a decade now.

The man was talking. Mersan tried to pay attention, but the names the man said slid in and out of his head like water.

Water. Now there was a thought. He was thirsty again, but it felt like far too much work to reach over and try to grab the bell for the healer.

But the man had already risen and was pouring him a glass. Mersan smiled. That was another nice thing about the man. He always seemed to know what Mersan wanted or what he was trying to say. Maybe he had a bit of druid blood in him.

"The dragons have fallen back," the man said as he handed over the water. Mersan perked up. Dragons, at least, he still had a clear memory for. "I think we'll have a quiet winter, although I wouldn't be surprised if they attacked one last time before the snows set in, just for spite."

Mersan nodded in agreement. Maybe not something as blatant as a physical attack, but some sort of nasty magic would be just what they'd do.

"Magic on the water supply, perhaps?" the man suggested. "The charms you put up on that are still holding strong, but if our spellcasters have a hard time believing it, I bet their mages will too."

That was good to hear. Nice to know he was still doing something for the war effort, even if the actual action had taken place long before. Maybe he'd still get to surprise the dragons one last time in his old age. What was their old general's name? Mersan had given him more than one scar, but the old bat had more than returned the favor by putting him in this bed. It would be nice to give him one last nasty shock.

"General Aithgrave," the man supplied. That name, at least, would stick for awhile in Mersan's brain. Maybe not through the night, but for a few hours at least. "If he tries for the water supply, your countercharms will get him, I'm sure. And if he doesn't . . . " A gleam entered the man's eyes. "I've got our spellcasters working on something. Come spring, I think the dragons will have to find themselves a new general."

It hurt to smile, but Mersan did it anyway.

The healer poked her head into the room. "High General Arthur, you asked me to remind you when it was time for the war council."

The man stood. "Of course. Just a moment, please."

The healer nodded and headed on.

The man peered out the door to make sure she was gone before heading back. "Look," he said. "I know it bothers you that you don't know when the bells are ringing, so I got one of the druids to make you this." He pulled a tiny bell out of his pocket and buried it under the edge of Mersan's pillow. "Whenever the main bell goes off, this one will too. Even if there isn't room for it to properly ring."

The healer wouldn't have understood Mersan's strangled attempt to say thank you, but the man had never needed something as awkward as words.

 

_Once, Merlin Remembered Everything_

Technically, his name was Magic. He contained the whole of magic, and it was all that he ever would be.

During the war, however, Courage had taken to calling him Merlin after the bird he turned into once when he needed a disguise.

There was more to the story than that, but it had been rather embarrassing, so he tried to pretend the event that had given him the name had never happened while holding onto the good memories wrapped up in that kind of camaraderie.

The lamp was a lonely place, after all. There was comfort in calling himself Merlin and remembering what it had meant.

He could see his other selves, sometimes. He laughed when he realized how the name followed him. Destiny's idea of a joke, perhaps, but if it was, he didn't mind.

He might be a bird in a cage, but he was a bird all the same, and one day he would find a way to fly again.

Courage, though, Courage was a bear. Certainly in the mornings, Merlin had once joked, even though they didn't need sleep.

It was a less of a joke to their enemies. He'd live and let live right up until he was wounded and angry or you got too close to someone he was protecting.

The mama bear and cubs analogy was obvious, but since that one wasn't really flattering to anyone involved, it didn't get used much.

Still. A bear. A rabid one when angered, and that had earned him his war name. Arthur had meant bear in the language they used then, so Arthur he had become. It was too embedded in everyone's memories, foe and friend alike, for anyone to ever name a baby shard of Courage anything else.

Merlin watched a wounded Arthur rampage across the multiverse they had inadvertently created and felt sorry for the enemies he faced that weren't shards. They had no idea what they were poking with a stick.

Arthur was a wounded bear, and he would sooner rip out the throat of the one who had wounded him than lie down and die.

It was harder to find Death's incarnations. Her name wasn't constant. Still, she was never far from the shards of Merlin and Arthur, so he always knew where to start.

Someday, he would fly again. Someday, he would see his favorite sister again. Someday, Arthur would make his way to this reality.

Someday. But right at this moment, someone was summoning him from his lamp.

A moment where he was stretched into a thousand directions and then -

Merlin emerged from his lamp and gave an elaborate bow. "Who is it that has summoned me from my lamp?"

He was in a treasury, he realized. That was at least a hint.

So was the crown on the head of the man who was holding his lamp.

"I am King Constans," the man said with narrowed eyes. "What are you?"

What, not who, Merlin processed with a sinking heart. This wasn't going to end well.

Someday, he promised himself. It might not be destined, but he was sure of it anyway. They would fix this, sooner or later. It might even be sooner.

After all, Constans was an ancestor of Arthur's in more reality than one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The idea of Arthur being a battle idea based on the word bear is an actual theory some historians hold. I have no idea of the validity of it, but it worked for this fic, so I ran with it.

**Author's Note:**

> Honor is Sir Leon, if anyone was wondering.
> 
> I know a lot of these moments center on Arthur's change of behavior after taking the crown, but I just love that moment so much because from Arthur's perspective: "Oh, no, what have I done, well at least I have Merlin - " *snatches Merlin like the only rock in a storm*  
> Merlin's perspective: "So Arthur's a prat/dangerous maniac/trying to kill me . . . And now he's being nice to me. That's creepy. What's going on - Okay, think later, life threatening situation now."
> 
> And then later never comes.
> 
> Next chapter won't be up for another few days. It'll deal with Arthur returning and will touch base with some of the universes we've seen from Arthur's perspective. Not all the one's seen here will make an appearance there, so if there's something you want, speak up! As ever, I make no promises, but I do what I can.
> 
> Also for the record: In the first section, it's Mordred poisoning everybody, not Merlin, and it's got nothing to do with blood and everything to do with intention. Merlin's actually the only reason the other's are still alive even if he doesn't realize it. I've got backstory there if anybody wants it.


End file.
